Story Highlights
- historical event: Karl Benz made the first car in history by putting a gasoline engine on a tricycle. His wife Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip when she, without his knowledge, went to visit her mother.
The inventor of the automobile, Karl Benz, was born on this day. His dream was to create a “horseless carriage”, and bicycles were his hobby. In the year 1885 he made the first car in history by putting a gasoline engine on a tricycle that had wheels similar to those of a bike (he did not use the wooden ones like on carriages). The engine of this first car had only one cylinder with 958 cc and 0.8 horsepower. It could reach the speed of 16 kilometers per hour.
Three years later, his wife Bertha Benz made the first long-distance automobile trip when she, without his knowledge, went to visit her mother. She traveled the route of 106 kilometers from Mannheim to Pforzheim in the Black Forest (Schwarzwald). Today, an antique automobile rally is repeatedly organized to commemorate her trip and the route of her travel was officially approved as a route of the industrial heritage of mankind. Bertha’s intention was to demonstrate the convenience of her husband’s invention to the world (marketing). In 1926 Benz’s company merged with Daimler and Daimler-Benz was formed, and their automobiles were sold under the name Mercedes-Benz.
